You have basically zero competition between paintball centers. Most fields will charge 200$+ for a case of bad paint(Draxus recsport) (and on top of that you add our 15% sale taxe) plus a 40$ admission fee. (One of those field even charge 400$+ for a case of "premium" paint)

When you are a member (which cost around 500$ for a lifetime membership), you get an "incredible" discount on paint, and you will have to shell out about 120$ for a case of paint and the admission fee is reduced to 10$ or 5$ depending on the center.)

Since 2005, lots of small fields started to pop up on the map. Most were legit (insurance, tax number, etc). Some were not.

Now those fields were selling paint at a reasonable price for my province (80/case for members, 100$/case for non members) and had reasonable admission fees. Those fields managed to prove that you CAN run a profitable outdoor paintball field with good infrastructure (4500PSI, self service fill station, very safe field, lots of netting, friendly staff) while not charging 300$+ for a case of paint.

The problem is that after one or two years (when they start to become popular), those fields are targeted with SERIOUS vandalism. (slashed nettings, arson, bucket full of rusty nails being thrown on the fields, slashed air hose, etc)

Now, this is just my opinion, but I think that something is fishy... We're not talking about graffiti/tagging vandalism but the kind of vandalism that intent to kill the field.

i.e: One of the field I played at was burned down and rebuilt 3 times during 2 years. The big wooden structures were burned down in mid march (we're talking about starting a fire with water-soaked wood while there is 4 ft of snow on the ground). It happened during the night. All the pic-nic table in the staging area got cut in half with a chainsaw, etc.

Last year, that field was leveled (again at night) with heavy machinery. All the structures got leveled and you could see the bulldozer/backhoe tracks on the ground. Who rent/use a bulldozer to vandalize a paintball field ?

That field had to close because it's impossible to cope with that kind of vandalism, you can't just rebuild your field every 6 months and hiring security was out of question (we're talking about a HUGE field and access control is impossible)

The police got involved but they couldn't do much.

That was last year. Last week, another budget field located on the south shore of Montreal got targeted by those vandals. All the netting were slashed, the back store got destroyed (including the air equipment), all the rental gear got destroyed (not stolen -- destroyed), buildings & bunkers were destroyed and the owner found lots of red Jerry can full of gas in his staging area. Maybe the vandals didn't had the time to burn the place down, or the vandals just wanted to send him a message ? That, again, happened at night and since his field is in a wooded area, access control is almost impossible.

I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I don't think that that kind of vandalism (using heavy construction equipment, large scale arson) is what your typical 16 years old bored kid would do.

Now we are thinking about reopening our field. We have the land, the capital and the player base, but the field is in an isolated area and access control/active security would be impossible. This vandalism is what's preventing us from putting the pedal to the metal and reopening the field.

We've thought about building EVERYTHING out of concrete & cinder blocks. Try to burn that down ! But then again, our previous field got leveled, at night, by a *&?&$ bulldozer. What do you want to do against that ?

Beside hiring 24/7 armed security guards, or resorting to free roaming rabid pitbulls with laser guns attached to their head or deploying colony of africanized bees at night, we're just out of options.

BY THE WAY: I'm not making any accusation. All I'm saying is that it looks like an individual (or a group of individuals) seems to have an interest in destroying budget paintball fields in this province.

Have you thought of doing a surveillance system? With the kind of field you're talking about building, spending a few grand on cameras and a DVR recording system would be a good investment. If you think that's to obvious use some stand alone trail cameras that are better hidden and that use their own memory.

Have you thought of doing a surveillance system? With the kind of field you're talking about building, spending a few grand on cameras and a DVR recording system would be a good investment. If you think that's to obvious use some stand alone trail cameras that are better hidden and that use their own memory.

The trails camera were no use.
The vandalism happens at night. At night, trails camera either:
- produce horrible and unusable pictures
OR
- Emit a bright flash, allow the vandal to spot the camera and steal/destroy it, which leave us with no pictures.

Also, unless the cameras are monitored 24/7, they won't prevent any damage. They just have to wear a mask and then we can't do anything. The land is also too large to make it possible to use cameras.

-Make building as secure as you can, make them from brick, bars on windows, steel double locked doors, and keep everything important inside!

-Security! cameras WILL help, and were not talking about a few cheep cameras here, get SEVERAL high quality night vision cameras. These WILL get images to help the police if you do get vandalized again. Make sure to limit ways that a vehicle can get on the property using whatever means necessary (trenches, downed trees, hills, rocks, barbed wire fences, maybe even electric?)

-Make sure that you have cameras focused on the areas where the vehicles may enter the property, so that you are sure to get license plate numbers.

-While building the field, make hard targets, not much you can do about the nets, but make staging areas and bunkers as strong as possible.

-Motion sensors, not right off the ground, but the height where only a human, or a vehicle would set them off. Make sure with your security system you can gain remote access to it, and make sure you keep it recorded off site.

-Make building as secure as you can, make them from brick, bars on windows, steel double locked doors, and keep everything important inside!

-Security! cameras WILL help, and were not talking about a few cheep cameras here, get SEVERAL high quality night vision cameras. These WILL get images to help the police if you do get vandalized again. Make sure to limit ways that a vehicle can get on the property using whatever means necessary (trenches, downed trees, hills, rocks, barbed wire fences, maybe even electric?)

-Make sure that you have cameras focused on the areas where the vehicles may enter the property, so that you are sure to get license plate numbers.

-While building the field, make hard targets, not much you can do about the nets, but make staging areas and bunkers as strong as possible.

-Motion sensors, not right off the ground, but the height where only a human, or a vehicle would set them off. Make sure with your security system you can gain remote access to it, and make sure you keep it recorded off site.

Best I can come up with for now

There is only so much you can do. I'll try and play off this guys recommendations.

First, I would make sure your insurance company covers vandalism well and won't give you any problems with covering damage. That way so you can get the field back up asap because you want to stay operational. The point of them vandalising is to get you out of business, don't allow it to happen.

Notify local authorities, ask them to have a patrol car pass by down your street during the night a few times and around the neighborhood more(can see any smoke or bright light in the night from fires). Bribe with donuts, coffee, good family discounts to officers, discount to local police stations for training or just fun outings, etc. Get them to like you so they would want to watch your property some. I used to work at a couple gas stations and I know that's how we used to encourage cops to come to our stores so you're less likely to get robbed.

Setup a live camera system you can watch from your house.. Some nice cameras. I don't know how much good motion detectors cost, but even a few motion detector lights that are like on garages might be enough to scare them away. It would also light up your screen at home so you notice your live camera system without having to actually "watch" the screen, so you can notify authorities. Wouldn't be quite as nice as an expensive security system with all the gadgets, but it would be a way to help cut costs and still kind of help. Plus you should still have the recordings to hopefully help, in case you do not catch them in the act. I mean as much as I like the idea of heavy duty security systems, electric fences and barb wire around someone's property it isn't cheap, and just so you can stop some guy from vandalising, seems like a bit much

Last year, that field was leveled (again at night) with heavy machinery. All the structures got leveled and you could see the bulldozer/backhoe tracks on the ground. Who rent/use a bulldozer to vandalize a paintball field ?

I'm curious to know how remote this field is. To vandalize something with that much effort seems almost unbelievable. To unload and then load heavy machinery after the leveling is done takes time and makes a lot of noise. And if caught, you're not making a fast getaway on a bulldozer. Bulldozers can be identified. This sounds like a lot of effort and risk. This really seems bizarre.

Fence the area inandleave 2 or 3 germanshepards on premise, or pay a security guard from 10pm to 4am 6 hours a night is only like 40 hours a week for 8 or 9 bucks an hour..
If what your saying is true he will catch them sooner than later. This cost of 400 a week can be offzet by instead of charging 400 or your 100 a case just make it like 140 a case still being super cheap and paying for extra security, That seems like a no brainer solution,

In my opinion this is not a kid, or someone with some extra time, this is more than likely one of your competitors......
How/why would a kid show up with a bulldozer, which takes more than a smile to access, and is significantly harder to move. What would be the motivation?

If you can limit your access to a single point, then you could have several motion activated lights, and multiple cameras in the area to well capture the culprit. I am a big fan of game cameras. They make indestructible cases for them, and you can get an extension latter and put them 20 feet up in a tree, which will be pretty hard to access.

You could try something like taking a nail gun and shooting a couple hundred nails into a 2x12 and then put it nails up on the ground and cover it with brush, it will disable any vehicle that drives over it, and will injure anyone that steps on it.

Be sure to post your property well with no trespassing signs, to ensure that when you catch someone you can fully prosecute them.

In my opinion this is not a kid, or someone with some extra time, this is more than likely one of your competitors......
How/why would a kid show up with a bulldozer, which takes more than a smile to access, and is significantly harder to move. What would be the motivation?

If you can limit your access to a single point, then you could have several motion activated lights, and multiple cameras in the area to well capture the culprit. I am a big fan of game cameras. They make indestructible cases for them, and you can get an extension latter and put them 20 feet up in a tree, which will be pretty hard to access.

You could try something like taking a nail gun and shooting a couple hundred nails into a 2x12 and then put it nails up on the ground and cover it with brush, it will disable any vehicle that drives over it, and will injure anyone that steps on it.

-Will

-Will

Whatever you do, do NOT set any traps that may injure someone attempting to trespass. This will open up a whole new world of problems for you.

I'm curious to know how remote this field is. To vandalize something with that much effort seems almost unbelievable. To unload and then load heavy machinery after the leveling is done takes time and makes a lot of noise. And if caught, you're not making a fast getaway on a bulldozer. Bulldozers can be identified. This sounds like a lot of effort and risk. This really seems bizarre.

It's a 8 minute ride (from any main road) on an unpaved road, surrounded by forest. It's very possible that someone can operate heavy machinery without being seen/heard. The whole place burned down in mid-march (soaked wood will generate a LOT of white smoke when burning) and nobody noticed the smoke/light generated by the fire.

And then again, if you see someone operating heavy machinery, you will *assume* that he belongs there and won't even raise an eyebrow over it. Keep in mind that our field was a "weekend only" thing which mean that there is nobody on site from monday to friday. And the land is so huge (11 000 000 sqft) that patrolling it is impossible. So is access control (multiple paths going to it)

We are currently trying to find a new plot of land. Our current place is a floodable zone (if you dig, you hit water after half a feet) and we wanted to move for a while. We found something interesting in another city, but then we are worried about security and vandalism.

What I thought about is to setup various "alarm boxes" (motion sensor hooked to a large horn, powered with a car battery) with a auto shutoff feature (the alarm stops after a few minutes). If we put the motion sensor at waist level (and put everything else high in a tree, making it inaccessible), we might scare a few people away. But then again the site is so remote that nobody would hear the alarm.

We also thought about digging a huge trench around the whole property. That trench would help with drainage and if wide enough, (around 6ft wide) would provide a form of access control and force vehicle to use the "main" entrance.

I would also have security cameras... I would advertise that you have several types of security measures. Place real working video cameras in hidden or hard to see areas and place more obvious fake ones. The reason I would say this is the vandals would try to avoid those cameras or even destroy those cameras and you could get them on the real tape.

Make friends with police(as said before) and neighbors(if possible.. Also stated before)

you could place motion lights in various spots to try and scare them off(also stated before)

if you only have one main entry you could gate it off and use several locks that can not be cut.

I say you go vandalize the other expensive place in the same manor they have vandilized you lol

Bad idea of the day award goes to: Bam!

Though based off what you said, I can side with you on the fact that this is shady business that seems t be your competitors doing, but before casting blame and pointing fingers you need to solid it up with some facts. You will hurt yourself by pointing fingers too soon. If you have friends that happen to play at the other fields once in awhile, chat with them. See what they know. Go out there yourself as a "customer" and just listen to what is being said and what they have on the property. Do not snoop into anything you shouldn't be in, but if these other fields are doing these kinds of things they may leave some hints laying around like gas cans, or tools that are comparable to the ones used on your field.

Talk to any big equipment renters of bulldozers or backhoes. You may not be able to get an exact name, but if you talk to their manager and express that your property was torn up by big equipment you may get some help from them in finding out who was responsible. Be honest with them and express your concern. Don't point fingers when you ask, just approach them as a concerned business owner and ask for their help in the issue. Many businesses like that hate to hear their product was used for such things or even the idea that it could have been.

Though based off what you said, I can side with you on the fact that this is shady business that seems t be your competitors doing, but before casting blame and pointing fingers you need to solid it up with some facts. You will hurt yourself by pointing fingers too soon. If you have friends that happen to play at the other fields once in awhile, chat with them. See what they know. Go out there yourself as a "customer" and just listen to what is being said and what they have on the property. Do not snoop into anything you shouldn't be in, but if these other fields are doing these kinds of things they may leave some hints laying around like gas cans, or tools that are comparable to the ones used on your field.

Talk to any big equipment renters of bulldozers or backhoes. You may not be able to get an exact name, but if you talk to their manager and express that your property was torn up by big equipment you may get some help from them in finding out who was responsible. Be honest with them and express your concern. Don't point fingers when you ask, just approach them as a concerned business owner and ask for their help in the issue. Many businesses like that hate to hear their product was used for such things or even the idea that it could have been.

A much better approach than even I stated.

You can also see if any fields own that type of equipment...

Maybe the area you are in is bad. In general. Have you thought of another area? Like if you are near the boarder you could try using some Northern American Land.

First off like people have said earlier the logistics of someone using a bull dozer seems pretty unlikely and backhoes have wheels (no way you could confuse them with bull dozer tracks). So your probably dealing with someone using a bobcat (something your competitor probably has) so if you dig a moat the guy would probably just build a bridge real quick and drive right over it

But as far as the building getting broken into and equipment destroyed, run everything out of a big inclosed trailer (keep guns, compressor ECT in it) and take it home at night. Slap your field name on the side use it as advertising and use it as a tax right off

Trail cameras have become legit now a days you can get high def ones, that automatically upload all pictures taking right onto your computer/phone ECT.

And finally an alternative to armed guards. Just hire a couple crack heads! Think about they normally pack heat, need a place to stay anyway, they don't sleep, they hear everything cause there so paranoid, and you could hire them for like 30 bucks a day.

Love brad
Good luck!

__________________
Brad Schaefer

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drawbridge, moat. (possible dangerous animals in said moat) high concrete walls. not to poke fun, but it seemed to work for thousands of years....

definitely contact equiptment rental centers in the area, i work at one myself. paintball fields dont normally require a bobcat, backhoe, or bulldozer. so anyone that rented it once or twice and isnt the usual customer will be remembered.

if u suspect (and u should) another field of doing the vandalizing, i liked the idea of snooping around, if u find a shed full of gas cans, lighters, used chainsaws, and a few bobcats u have ur culprit. then its all about catching them in the act and alerting the authorities. do not confront them.

also no one mentioned that if theyre a paintball field, then they have paintball players there, paintball players go on pbnation, pbnationers see this thread, so just by making this thread, said field that is doing the vandalizing knows that someone suspects them. this thread as well as word of mouth and letting any players in the area know about the suspected vandalism chances are someone will find something out, or would stop the culprits from doing further damage knowing that someone is looking for them

1- buy some real guns
2- live on the property
3- post up and have it marked very clear that trespassers will be shot.
4- between Monday and Friday kill anything that moves

history shows us that death is the best deterrent for crime.

__________________
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Along with the video security monitors, trenches, one or two entries, etc.
Also go with steel/concrete bollards (use to stop vehicles from hitting your house. Maybe make them large enough to stop a bobcat. Then use a chain link fence with plenty of the razor type barb wire. Set a roll after the bollards, on top the fence, and other side of the fence.

Also you said it was surrounded by forest so plenty of trees to cut down and pile up around the field if you don't want to fence it all in.

Now the wire I am sure you know is pretty good at snagging a persons clothing and the more they struggle... the more they are stuck there. Even if they do get out it will not be without some sort of cut. Everyone bleeds.